Brought to you by Innovate Finance and a community of FinTech Academics.
Chaired by
UKFAN Core objectives
Establish a multidisciplinary and self-sustaining inclusive FinTech research community in the UK.
Bridge existing gaps between the academic, industry, and regulatory communities and help unlock new partnerships and investment in research and innovation.
Develop cohesive research roadmaps and future research agendas to tackle real challenges in UK financial services and the FinTech space to inform policy and practice.
To achieve its vision, UKFAN will bring together researchers across all relevant academic disciplines such as finance, economics, information systems, strategy, mathematics, entrepreneurship, computer science, and humanities to contribute to the current dialogue around FinTech in industry and the public sector. The UKFAN's annual conference is envisioned to be the UK's flagship academic event on FinTech research.
The key areas and technologies of interest that the network will initially focus on include AI, open banking, payments, blockchain, regulation and green finance.
Additional information on the founding members of UKFAN:
Founding Chair:
Professor Markos Zachariadis (Director, Centre for Financial Technology Studies, Alliance Manchester Business School (AMBS), University of Manchester) is Professor of Financial Technologies (FinTech) and Information Systems and a GFC member of the World Economic Forum.
Founding Members:
Professor Raghavendra Rau (Director of Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF), Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge) is Professor of Finance and the Academic Director of the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF).
Professor Andrei Kirilenko (Director of the Cambridge Centre for Finance, Technology & Regulation (CCFTR), Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge) is Professor of Finance and the Founding Director of the Cambridge Centre for Finance, Technology & Regulation (CCFTR).
Professor Lukasz Szpruch (Programme Director for Finance and Economics, Alan Turing Institute) is Reader at the School of Mathematics, the University of Edinburgh, and the Programme Director for Finance and Economics at The Alan Turing Institute, the National Institute for Data Science and AI.
Dr Jean-Philippe Vergne (UCL School of Management, University College London) is Associate Professor in Strategy where he focuses on the applications of blockchain and how it can decentralise organisations.
Professor Philip Treleaven (Department of Computer Science, University College London) is Professor of Computing and Director of the Financial Computing Centre a Government-funded UK PhD Centre in Financial Computing (a collaboration of UCL, LSE, LBS and the leading financial institutions).
Dr Jiahua Xu (Centre for Blockchain Technologies, University College London) is Assistant Professor in Financial Computing at UCL, where she lectures on Blockchain Technologies and Machine Learning in Finance.
Professor Crawford Spence (Co-Director of the FinWork Futures Research Centre, King’s College London) is Professor of Accounting with broader interests in economic sociology.
Professor Alex Preda (Co-Director, FinWork Futures Research Centre, King’s College London) Professor of Professions, Markets and Technology with principal research interest in global financial markets and financial professions.
Dr. Ying-Ying Hsieh (Associate Director, Centre for Cryptocurrency Research and Engineering at Imperial College London) is Assistant Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship researching blockchain-based decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs).
Professor Pinar Ozcan (Director of the Oxford Future of Finance and Technology (Fintech) Initiative, Said Business School, University of Oxford) is Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation specialising in entrepreneurship and strategy in technology markets.
Dr Nir Vulkan (Said Business School, University of Oxford) is Associate Professor of Business Economics with interest in FinTech, e-commerce and market design.
Professor Alistair Milne (Chair in Loughborough School of Business and Economics) is Professor of Financial Economics focusing on bank capital; financial regulation; financial risk management; financial stability; central banking; payments and systems of payments.
Professor Christopher Holland (Chair in Loughborough School of Business and Economics) is Professor of Information Management focusing on digital strategy, business models, and technology implementation in insurance and financial services.
Alderman Professor Michael Mainelli (Gresham College) is Honorary Life Fellow of Gresham College and Emeritus Mercers’ School Memorial Professor of Commerce at Gresham College, Fellow of King’s College London, and Visiting Professor at UCL’s Bartlett School, as well as Chairman of Z/Yen Group (publishers of the Global Financial Centres Index), FS Club, and the Esop Centre.
Professor Yuval Millo (Warwick Business School) is Professor of Accounting at Warwick Business School specializing in the field of social studies of finance (SSF) and the sociology of financial markets. His current research focuses on measuring climate risk in pension funds and dynamics of passive investing.
Dr Nikiforos Panourgias (School of Business & Management, Queen Mary University of London) is Professor of Financial Markets Information Systems at Queen Mary University of London.
Dr Carsten Sørensen (Department of Management, The London School of Economics and Political Science) is Reader (Associate Professor) in Digital Innovation particularly studying digital platforms and rights-based digital infrastructures. He is a Hedera council member.
Dr Edgar Whitley (Department of Management, The London School of Economics and Political Science) is Associate Professor (Reader) in Information Systems. He is a member of the Open Banking Data Expert Panel, co-chair of the Privacy and Consumer Advisory Group and Review Board member for two Digital Economy Act Data Sharing Review Boards.
Professor Muttukrishnan (Raj) Rajarajan (Department of Engineering at the School of Science & Technology, City University of London) is Professor of Security Engineering and Director of the Institute for Cyber Security at the City University of London.
Professor Johannes Muhle-Karbe (Faculty of Natural Sciences, Department of Mathematics, Imperial College London) is Head of Mathematical Finance, Chair in Mathematical Finance and Director of the CFM-Imperial Institute of Quantitative Finance.
Dr Jack Jacquier (Faculty of Natural Sciences, Department of Mathematics, Imperial College London) is Reader in Mathematical Finance and his research interests are in Probability and Mathematical Finance. He is Director of the MSc in Mathematics and Finance, Imperial College London.
